Why Wanaka should be on your New Zealand bucket list
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Located a couple hours north of the adventure tourism Mecca of Queenstown, Wanaka is New Zealand’s fastest growing city, according to the 2019 census. Wanaka is a tourist-friendly lake-front town that boasts stunning scenery, an incredible lakefront business district and enough outdoor adventures to keep visitors busy for weeks.
The turquois waters of Lake Wanaka cover 192 kilometers and comprise the country’s fourth largest lake. It’s more than 300 meters deep and stretches from the Southern Alps southeast into New Zealand’s Otago region.
So is Wanaka worth visiting? With fair weather, beautiful scenery and heaps of recreation opportunities, Wanaka is well worth the small effort it takes to get there.
Wanaka is better with a local guide
Craig Fahey, our Kiwi friend and guide, on Lake Wanaka.
We were lucky to see Lake Wanaka by boat, plane, mountain bike and shoe leather over the course of three sunny days, but the real treat was getting to catch up with an old friend and his family.
Craig Fahey grew up in New Zealand but as a young man moved to Pennsylvania to work at a summer camp operated on a horse farm outside my hometown. The kids who grew up on the farm were some of the closest friends my brother and I had, and since Craig was taken in like family there, he also became a friend by affiliation. I’d seen him a few times as an adult, but the years when we saw each other with any consistency were 20 years in the past.
When I reached out to Craig some six months before, he eagerly extended some Kiwi hospitality and encouraged us to stay with him. Craig, his wife and two sons, 2 and 4, were generous and fun hosts who showed us a side of New Zealand’s fastest growing city that we otherwise couldn’t have seen.
What makes Wanaka so beautiful?
The view of Wanaka, Lake Wanaka and the Southern Alps from Mount Iron.
Although it’s within sight of the Southern Alps, Wanaka is positioned squarely in the range’s rain shadow and the driest part of New Zealand. This unique combination of wet mountain weather that’s within sight from a fairly arid town means Wanaka frequently enjoys stunning and moody scenes when sun, clouds and precipitation merge and form postcard-perfect moments over the lake.
The mountains and lake are Craig’s office. He operates daily trips to Mau Waho, an island where he guides clients to a small lake. He also guides more involved heli trips in the high peaks around Wanaka, some of the most storied mountains in the country. If you’ve seen Lord of the Rings or any of a half dozen other movies set against dramatic mountain backdrops you’ve seen the landscapes surrounding Wanaka.
Sailing on Lake Wanaka
Sailing on Lake Wanaka means fighting erratic mountain winds, but the scenery doesn’t dissapoint.
Craig tried to get us on one of his chartered trips to the island within an island, but the weather didn’t cooperate. He took us instead for an evening sailing regatta at the local sailing club where his office is perched on the second story with a sweeping view. Craig’s original plan was to get us on a sail boat to actually race in the event, but one of the safety boat drivers called in sick, so we donned bright red jackets and joined him on a dingy with a 40-horsepower motor.
A storm blew through the high peaks to the west, and the wind on Lake Wanaka was erratic. The sailboats struggled as a huge double rainbow arced over town to the east. While we gawked at the lake, Craig motored among the sailboats, put on his guide hat and shared some interesting facts.
Wanaka is an Instagram sensation
This aerial photo shows the Roy’s Peak parking lot where more than 160 cars, vans and campers spill onto nearby roads and fields.
Craig pointed to a high peak called Roy’s and said it’s climbed by up to a thousand people a day chasing a singular photo they can post to their Instagram profiles. It’s a big hike, but he said there’s guaranteed to be a lengthy cue of people waiting to take—or be pictured in—the classic photo, which features a ridgeline with nothing behind it but the far-off lake. Check #royspeak for a peek.
He pointed to a shoreline near town where a line of about a dozen people was apparent across the water. As with Roy’s this was a cue of people waiting to take a photo of a willow tree growing from the water. Check out #thatwankatree on Instagram if you’re curious.
He explained that Wanaka didn’t used to be like that.
Some years ago the town’s boosters had an idea to promote tourism. They invited a half dozen of the world’s top Instagramers and set them loose to capture the area’s dramatic landscapes, but they also drew a new kind of attention to their subjects—the kind of attention that wasn’t possible just 10 or 15 years ago.
The little non-native tree growing from the water near the shore of Lake Wanaka used to be—well, just a tree. Now it’s an international focal point for people who’ve been drawn to New Zealand’s natural wonders by their smart phones. The ridge on Roy’s Peak used to be a beautiful place for a trail run or hike. Now it’s an amusement that attracts a singular kind of attention.
Coffee, shopping and hiking Mount Iron
The Wanaka lakefront is picturesque and easy to find. We also had a great time getting off the beaten path and visiting the Wastebusters thrift store.
With the boats from the regatta safely ashore, we returned to the sailing club and enjoyed a pint and a burger as the sun set over the mist-shrouded Southern Alps, then returned to Craig and Mel’s front lawn where we parked our camper van and slept.
The next day was another near-full day of rain, and while Craig went to work, we went to a local coffee shop with his wife, Mel, a charming Canadian ex-pat, and their two charismatic boys. After coffee, we joined them at a thrift store where we went through piles of second-hand treasures and went on to buy groceries and traipse around Wanaka’s charming lake-front business district where an assortment of shops and pubs kept us busy until the rain broke.
By mid-afternoon, the sun poked out intermittently, as we hiked up the flank of Mount Iron, a 250-meter knoll at the center of Wanaka. The summit offers 360-degree views of Wanaka and Central Otago, and as we hiked we schemed about where we’d go and do next.
We didn’t want to leave New Zealand without visiting the storied Fiordland in the island’s southwest wilderness, but also found we were already running out of time in our van. We were a quarter of the way around the island, and the end of our three weeks in the van was already on the horizon.
So we hatched a plan that would cost more but save time: we’d fly from Wanaka into Milford Sound, which was closed to traffic after some recent storms and landslides. The weather window looked good and there were seats available on a small plane, so we booked a couple spots and buckled up for our next New Zealand adventure.